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Week of February 21, 2006 Session 5 Ashes in the Wind: Death in the World of the Homeless
E-1 Staff members see many people who come in bearing any number of physical and emotional afflictions. These include:
Underneath all this painful stuff is the clinging reality of being poor, which is, in most cases, a sentence for life. (155f.)
Everyone knows that in those difficult moments in life, it is important—so important—that other people recognize our weaknesses and take care not to quench the flame of hope that barely flickers within us. It is important that people meet us, love us, embrace us, bind us up, and encourage us—in all of our confusion— to step into the next part of our journey. Such presence can nourish us and give our hope a chance to break out into the open and live. Then, even if all the staring cynics and self-absorbed scoffers write us off as losers, we can rest in the truth that an authentic person took the time to care. In the presence of this kind of love, we are able to say—as we hope the people who come to OMB or Rose Haven or the Macdonald Center or Sisters of the Road Café can say—“They believe me, they love me, they discover strength in my wounds.” In this, Isaiah’s vision is fulfilled. But to see obscure people dying in obscure hotel rooms, yet cared for as if they were the most important people in the world—what an amazing sight. They are treated as if they were someone’s father or mother. But that is exactly the point: they are. Having no family, they have a family. The operative mantra of care is No kin, my kin. When I see people caring for those who are dying in the SROs, it reminds me of a stunning truth of the often dreary world of the streets: No person, whoever he or she is or wherever he or she lives, is denied the grasp of God’s heart. We are cherished by God, hunted by God, redeemed by God. And having experienced this, we are reminded that we are called to be bearers of God’s love and truth, and, as bearers, we are to bring that love and truth into our culture, where there exist the bruises and flickering flames caused by poverty, lack of education, poor health care, homelessness, loneliness, racism, and injustice. All of our brothers and sisters are not treated equally, and the least deserve more. [157f.]
Through Scripture, I reminded us all of the ultimate dignity that each one of these precious human beings had by virtue of being creatures and children of God: For Zion was saying, “Yahweh has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me.” Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you. See, I have branded you on the palms of my hands. Isaiah 49:14-16 [161f.]
Jim came up to me one day and informed me that the “Little One,” Becky, a regular bartender at the tavern, had shot herself. Right there, at the bar. She was forty; “Would you do some kind of memorial service for her?” he asked me. “Of course. Where?” “At the bar.” A few days later, at 10:30 in the morning, I did my first and only memorial service in a tavern. It was a small place, with the bar itself running the length of one side of the room and about a dozen booths shoehorned into the other side. I took my place in front of the jukebox, at the far end of the room, using the bar as a prop for my Bible. I greeted everyone and nervously began a service of prayers, readings, and reflections. All the booths were full of people, as were the stools at the bar, and already some pitchers of beer had been poured. Knowing something of Becky’s solicitude for all the tavern’s clients, I began with the tenth chapter of John, the parable of the good shepherd. I tried to connect her care for the brothers and sisters of Old Town, with all their warts and wonders, to the care God had for her in all the known and unknown troubles in her life. Preaching on the occasion of a suicide is not easy, but I tried to preempt any of Becky’s decisions about her life with the decisions that God has made for all of us. If we are lost, I stressed, God will hunt us down—in love—like the good shepherd, to the last moment. [170f.]
They were moved by the event and by the shock of me, but something else had happened, too: a mystery had touched them, and subconsciously they knew that there was a relationship between the event and the mystery. This unarticulated awareness disclosed itself in their questions: Are you really a priest? Do you do this much, Father? Does the church really do this? Is God for real? Can God love someone like me, who never goes to church? [172]
For most of my life I had my own versions of the stereotypical prejudices toward homosexuality, a result of the usual macho-guy baggage. I told dirty jokes, made snorting observations of gay couples (“Look at those fags”), and was indifferent to the theological and existential questions of gay men and women. Questions may be the wrong word; how about agony? In my guy-talk world, Jesuit and otherwise, I had a repulsion for any kind of romantic relationship that was not clearly defined as heterosexual. I am not sure at what point my attitude began to change; it could have been the result of any number of things: the close friendships I had formed with a couple of gay men and women, the long talks with gay Jesuits, the acquaintance of street people who struggled to understand themselves as homosexual. Whatever the catalyst, I came to find it less and less possible to relate to my gay friends on the basis of past viewpoints. I was unwilling to be seduced by homophobic attitudes. So, as I joined the crowd at Riverfront Park on Memorial Day, I was conscious of both my history and my care and appreciation for the brothers and sisters who had asked me to be there. … I read from Isaiah and offered a few words on the reality of the one whom we must all count on, in life and death. I have called you by your name, you are mine. Should you pass through the sea, I will be with you; or through rivers, they will not swallow you up. Should you walk through fire, you will not be scorched and the flames will not burn you. . Because you are precious in my eyes, because you are honored and I love you. Isaiah 43:1-2, 4 As I looked around, trying to craft some words appropriate to the occasion and thinking of Isaiah’s words about another little community that lived on the edges, I couldn’t help but think that the half-circle was a functional metaphor. The gay and lesbian community exists and moves on the edges of the circle of our culture. I know we say that we have a diverse culture and that all are welcome—even the church is now saying this, nervously—but theirs is a community that continues to live on the outskirts. I guess I was feeling some of the pain of it all in that moment, in spite of the strength and endurance I was receiving from the surrounding group of men and women. [173f.]
Back at the bar, a small buffet had been prepared. People kept coming up to me, wanting to talk. It was one of those mysterious moments in which my priesthood allows me to bridge factors that would normally keep people apart. I thought of that line in 2 Corinthians in which Paul says, “He has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled. So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ’s name is: be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20). [175]
Is anything more devastating than the loss of a best friend? The mourning runs so deep that words miss the mark. They are nothing but a shadow of the truth. How can anyone else understand the unique contribution someone’s best friend made to his or her life? When a best friend dies, a piece of us dies, too, and we become like a separated Siamese twin, once joined at the heart to a soul mate and now cut apart and living in another galaxy. But the blood of the soul mate still flows in our veins, and our hearts still bear the indelible imprint of another heart. I think they always will. At one point Rosie said to me, “I better shut up; I’m taking your job.” I replied, “No group has ever been led so gracefully, Rosie.” Her honesty, delivered to a group such as ours, was the stuff of a sacred moment; it was raw, fragile, and, like Rosie, irrepressible. In a strange way, listening to her was like hearing a great piece of music or an extraordinary musician for the first time: we simply had never heard anything like this before. She took us to a higher level of human communication, pushing our hearts to that frontier of wonder, which to that point we had never crossed. [177] Background view: The Soup kitchen at St Helen's, Lancashire Background Midi: Some Children See Him |
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Radical Compassion: Part 2 Epiphany to Transfiguration Radical Compassion: Part 1 Pentecost to Christ the King |
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Discovering Jesus daily